Historical Summary

Grondines was founded in 1637. Its creation was part of the gradual settlement of the Québec region, the cradle of French-Canadian civilization, with that of Montreal, from the beginning of the French Regime until the 19th century. Situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, the locality takes its name from the sound of waves breaking on the large pebbles of the flats in high winds.

The seigneury welcomed its first inhabitants in the 1670s, migrants from various provinces of France, mainly from the northeast. Among them were nearly a dozen orphans from the Hôpital Général de Paris, known as “filles du Roi”. Over time, the origins of the new inhabitants became more diversified: from the Quebec City area and neighboring seigneuries (Portneuf, Batiscan, Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, etc.). From around 50 in 1681, the population quadrupled in less than a century (254 in 1765), then passed the 1,000 mark in the first quarter of the 19th century. It peaked in 1881 with 1707 inhabitants.

With good land in its southern part, Grondines was an agricultural parish in the 18th and 19th centuries. As elsewhere in the Laurentian Valley, its inhabitants grew mainly wheat in the days of New France, and increasingly oats for a herd that already exceeded five hundred head of cattle in the 1730’s. In the 19th century, oats and hay, the two main commercial products of the period, were in the spotlight, and good quantities of potatoes were harvested. By the end of the century, Grondines had become Portneuf County’s main fruit-growing area.

But agriculture wasn’t the only activity that shaped life in Grondines in the 19th century. Water-related activities must also be taken into account. From a dozen or so in the first half of the century, the number of sailors climbed to 132 by 1871. That year, one in five heads of household was a sailor. All these men were busy on some forty barges carrying agricultural products, cut limestone from Saint-Marc-des-Carrières, limestone from Grondines and firewood from Portneuf County, one of the largest producers of the latter resource in Quebec at the time. After Confederation, Grondines was home to 37% of the sailors and two-thirds of the barges in Portneuf County. On the industrial front, one of Quebec’s first windmills was built in Grondines in 1674. The industrial fabric grew over the decades, with the addition of flour and carding mills, water-powered sawmills (up to 10 in 1831), craftsmen’s stores (blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, shoemakers) and barge-building yards, which provided work for some 20 men in 1871, testifying once again to the primary role of navigation in the parish.

In the 20th century, Grondines remained essentially an agricultural parish. As in the previous century, transportation continued to play a central role, with the creation of the Guilbault family company in 1929, which became a leader in the Quebec trucking industry and one of the village’s largest employers.